Montana’s Josh Hohm thought he had done a little baby moose a favor by reporting it to state wildlife officials after discovering it nearby its dead mother, but what he couldn’t anticipate was how the young animal would be “taken care of.”

Instead of finding it
food or addressing any potential illness, Montana Fish, Wildlife
and Park (FWP) officials ended up killing the moose and blowing
its carcass up with explosives – right alongside its deceased
mother and another dead calf.

The whole grisly episode began on Monday, when Hohm took a
camping trip out to Montana’s West Boulder Campground. He was
still in the woods when RT spoke to him by phone.

"I was simply walking through the woods with my two dogs and
out of nowhere this day-old moose calf was walking right up to me
with his little distress calls," Hohm told RT, referring to
the baby moose's cries.

Hohm knew that its mother would likely be nearby, and it probably
wouldn’t appreciate it hanging around humans. Instead of
discovering an angry cow moose, however, Hohm found the mother
close by, lying dead next to another calf that had been
stillborn.

"I was with the calf for about seven or eight hours until the
Fish and Game Department was able to get to the location,"
he said.

He then left the calf with the wildlife officials, who said it
would be taken care of. And it was, but not the way the Good
Samaritan expected.

"When I left the animal in their care... very shortly after,
they shot it in the head. They didn't remove it from the
premises, there were no tests taken, they simply waited for me to
leave and they dispatched the animal," Hohm said.

"Really, all they needed to do was provide some food for the
little guy. I called them for help and I guess I expected them to
do a little bit more than just shoot the calf and detonate the
body."

“These guys are on our payroll to oversee the protection and
well-being of these animals and this is how we ‘manage wildlife?’
It’s quite disheartening.” Hohm said to local KXLH News.

While Hohm and others may be shocked, the Montana FWP stands by
its behavior, saying trying to find another home for the moose
was out of the question, and that the agency acted to prevent
disease from spreading.

“I feel for people who obviously have good intentions,”
she added. “On the flip side of things, we also want to
protect humans and animals when it comes to the spreading of
disease.”

Jones said that while bears or birds of prey may be taken in and
rehabilitated, moose, elk and deer are a different story due to
their disease-carrying potential. The mother of this baby moose
was also infested with worms, she told KXLH.

“They can carry chronic wasting disease which can be very
devastating to populations; it’s also very dangerous to
humans,” Jones said. She also said that without its mother,
the baby moose would have starved.